Story 5 - The Frog Prince

AT a city there is a certain King; a widow lives at a house near his palace. She subsists by going to this royal palace and pounding rice there; having handed it over she takes away the rice powder and lives on it.

During the time while she was getting a living in this way she bore a frog, which she reared there. When it was grown up, the King of that city caused this proclamation to be made by beat of tom-toms:

“I will give half my kingdom, and goods amounting to an elephant’s load, to the person who brings the Jewelled Golden Cock ^[1] that is at the house of the Rakshasi (Ogress).”

Every one said of it that it could not be done. The widow’s Frog having heard the King’s proclamation, said to the widow,

“Mother, I will bring the Jewelled Golden Cock. Cook a bundle of rice and give me it.”

Having heard the Frog’s words, the widow cooked a bundle of rice and gave it to him.

The Frog took the bundle of rice, and hanging it from his shoulder went to an Indi (wild Date) tree, scraped the leaf off a Date spike (the mid-rib of the leaf), and strung the rice on it. While going away after stringing it, the Frog then became like a very good-looking royal Prince, and a horse and clothing for him made their appearance there. Putting on the clothes he mounted the horse, and making it bound along he went on till he came to a city.

Hearing that he had arrived, the King of that city prepared quarters for this Prince to stay at, and having given him ample food and drink, asked,

“Where art thou going ?”

Then the Prince said:

“The King of our city has made a proclamation by beat of tom-toms, that he will give half his kingdom and an elephant’s load of gold to the person who brings him the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the Rakshasi’s house. Because of it I am going to fetch the Jewelled Golden Cock”

The King, being pleased with the Prince on account of it, gave him a piece of charcoal.

“Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi while returning after taking the Jewelled Golden Cock, tell this piece of charcoal to be created a fire-fence, and cast it down,”

he said. Taking it, he went to another city.

The King of that city in that very manner having prepared quarters, and made ready and given him food and drink, asked,

“Where art thou going ?”

The Prince replied in the same words,

“I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock that is at the house of the Rakshasi.”

That King also being pleased on account of it gave him a stone,

“Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi, tell this stone to be created a mountain, and cast it down,”

he said.

Taking the charcoal and the stone which those two Kings gave him, he went to yet another city.

The King also in that very manner having given him quarters, and food and drink, asked,

“Where art thou going ?”

The Prince in that very way said,

“I am going to bring the Jewelled Golden Cock.”

That King also being greatly pleased gave him a thorn.

“Should you be unable to escape from the Rakshasi, tell a thorn fence to be created, and cast down this thorn,”

he said.

On the next day he went to the house of the Rakshasi. She was not at home; the Rakshasi’s daughter was there. That girl having seen the Prince coming and not knowing him, asked,

“Elder brother, elder brother, where are you going ?”

The Prince said,

“Younger sister, I am not going anywhere whatever. I came to beg at your hands the Jewelled Golden Cock which you have got.”

To that she replied,

“Elder brother, to-day indeed I am unable to give it. To-morrow I can. Should my mother come now she will eat you; for that reason come and hide yourself.”

Calling him into the house, she put him in a large trunk at the bottom of seven trunks, and shut him up in it.

After a little time had passed, the Rakshasi came back. Having come and seen that the Prince’s horse was there, she asked her daughter,

“Whose is this horse ?”

Then the Rakshasi’s daughter replied,

“Nobody’s whatever. It came out of the jungle, and I caught it to ride on.”

The Rakshasi having said,

“If so, it is good,”

came in. While lying down to sleep at night the sweet odour of the Prince having reached the Rakshasi, she said to her daughter,

“What is this, Bola ? ^[2] A smell of a fresh human body is coming to me.”

Then the Rakshas i ’s daughter said,

“What, mother ! Do you say so ? You are constantly eating fresh bodies; how can there not be an odour of them ?”

After that, the Rakshasi, taking those words for the truth, went to sleep.

At dawn on the following day, as soon as she arose the Rakshasi went to seek human flesh for food. After she had gone, the Rakshasa-daughter, taking out the Prince who was shut up in the box, told that Prince a device on going away with the Jewelled Golden Cock:

“Elder brother, if you are going away with the Cock, take some cords and fasten them round my shoulders. Having put them round me, take the Cock, and having mounted the horse go off, making him bound quickly. When you have gone I shall cry out. Mother comes when I give three calls. After she has come, loosening me will occupy much time ; then you will be able to get away.”

In the way she said, the Prince tied the Rakshasa-daughter, and taking the Jewelled Golden Cock mounted the horse, and making it bound quickly came away.

As that Rakshasa-daughter said, while she was calling out the Rakshasi came. Having come, after she looked about [she found that] the Rakshasa-daughter was tied, and the Jewelled Golden Cock had been taken away. After she had asked,

“Who was it ? Who took it ?”

the Rakshasa-daughter said,

“I don’t know who it was.”

After that, she very quickly unfastened the Rakshasa-daughter, and both of them came running to eat that Prince.

The Prince was unable to go quickly. While going, the Prince turned round, and on looking back saw that this Rakshasi and the Rakshasa-daughter were coming running to eat that Prince.

After that, he cast down the thorn which the abovementioned King of the third city gave him, having told a thorn fence to be created. A thorn fence was created. Having jumped over it they came on.

After that, when he had put down the piece of stone which the King of the second city gave him, and told a mountain to be created, a mountain was created. They sprang over that mountain also, and came on.

After that, he cast down the charcoal which the King of the first city gave him, having told a fire fence to be created. In that very manner a fire fence was created. Having come to it, while jumping over it both of them were burnt and died.

From that place the Prince came along. While coming, he arrived at the Indi tree on which he had threaded the rice, and having taken off it all that dried-up rice he began to eat it. On coming to the end of it, the person who was like that Prince again became a Frog.

After he. became a Frog, the clothes that he was wearing, and the horse, and the Jewelled Golden Cock vanished. Out of grief on that account that Frog died at that very place.

North-western Province.

 

Note:

In the Jataka story No. 159 (vol. ii, p. 23) there is a tale of a Golden Peacock which lived upon a golden hill. A King got it caught and informed it that the reason was because

“Your colour is golden ; therefore (so it is said) those who eat your flesh become young and live so for ever.”

In the story No. 491 (vol. iv, p. 210) the chick is described as

“of the colour of gold, with two eyes like gunja fruit, and a coral beak, and three red streaks ran down his throat and down the middle of his back.”

On p. 212, it is said that

“they who eat his flesh will be ever young and immortal.”

This one lived in the Himalayas for seven thousand years.

In The Story of Madana Kama Raja (Natesha Sastri), p. 56,' a Queen bore a Tortoise Prince who had the power of leaving his shell. At p. 141, a Queen also bore a Tortoise, which was reared by her, and eventually went in search of divine Parijata flowers (Erythrina indica) from a tree which grew in Indra’s heaven. He seems to have been a turtle and not a tortoise, being described as swimming for weeks across the Seven Seas. He climbed Udayagiri, the Mountain of the Dawn, and blocked the way of the Sun-god (who rises from behind it), in honour of whom he uttered 1,008 praises.

Pleased with this, the deity gave him a splendid divine body like a man’s, and the power to resume his tortoise shape at will; he directed him to a sage, who sent him to another, and this one to a third, by whose advice he secured the love and assistance of a divine nymph, an Apsaras, by concealing her robes when a party of them were bathing. With her aid he obtained the heavenly flowers.

In Old Deccan Days, Ganges Valley (Frere), p. 69, a Prince, using a wand belonging to a Rakshasi, created in order to stop her pursuit, a river, a mountain, and apparently a forest. Lastly, by throwing down three of her hairs that he had secured he set the trees on fire, and she was burnt in the flames.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), p. 360 fi., the daughter of a Rakshasa King gave the Prince who wanted to marry her

“some earth, some water, some thorns, and some fire, and her own fleet horse,”

telling him how to use them. He was chased by the brother of the King, whom he went to invite to the wedding. When he threw down the earth a mountain was produced behind him; the water became a great river ; the thorns a dense thorny wood.

When the Rakshasa emerged from the wood and was coming on, the Prince threw down the fire, which set the bushes and trees in front of him ablaze, and finding this difficult to cross he returned home,

“tired and terrified.”

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Mini Ran Kukula. The spelling in this and other instances is according to the manuscripts, except in such words as Rakshasa and Rakshasi, the village forms of which are Rasaya and Rasi; and Brahmana, which is usually given as Brahmanaya.

[2]:

A word without any special meaning in English, often used in addressing a person familiarly and somewhat disrespectfully.